Visits to two monasteries plus a drive through a fertile farming valley made for an interesting day. The farmers, both men and women, were hard at work throughout the valley, hand thrashing barley in the fields and raising clouds of dust. The remaining straw was then piled high onto trailers driven either by small tractors or horses and taken to the homes where it will be used as winter feed for the animals.

We stopped at a Tibetan stone house to watch two women making dung paddies which they dry and use for fuel. One of the woman offered us a tour of the house which was very interesting. Thirteen people lived in the house, mainly on the second floor. The first floor housed dry dung patties and animals. The house was quite substantial with a large common room and kitchen, but definitely primitive by our standards.

The second highlight of the day was the large monastery here in Shigatse which had been almost totally destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but has now been rebuilt. We have now seen many monasteries (we would call them temples, although they all have monks living in them), but have not tired of seeing them as they are all different and all spectacular in the statues and paintings throughout. One of the Buddha figures in this monastery was 45m high! The highlight of the visit here was to circulate through a room full of over 100 chanting monks. It was very moving in a soothing way. I was especially touched when one of the older monks took my prayer beads (that our guide had insisted that I buy), and rubbed them in his hands in a blessing before returning them to me. Religion and spiritualism are a strong and ever present part of life that is evident everywhere in Tibet.